Paralyzed
by linklover88
Summary: Part of me wants to kiss you and part of me wants to kill you. I'm a monster inside, you have to understand that. That's why I'm running. We can both live if I leave... Just as long as your demons don't overpower mine. Character death, one-shot, Dark/Link.


**A/N: I've had the worst writer's block for about three months now, and I've been frantically trying to cure it… So have a drabble. Annnnd my writer's block is still not cured so I'm gonna go back under the radar again. Sweet…  
****Someone needs to do genres for me.  
****Dedicated to everyone who has been super patient with my horribly slow updating…**

**Warnings: Strong Language, Character Death**

_I want to save you_.

The sound of my heart beating in my ears is louder than a drum.

_Let me in. Let me help…_

The feeling of my feet racing over the packed dirt, colors blurring out of the corner of my eyes as I run, none of it is processing in my mind. The only thing I can think of is one single thought: _escape._

So I do. Or, I try to. I want to run as far as the sun even though I can already feel my chest seizing. I want to watch the land fall behind me despite the obscuring tears gathering in my eyes, a sob rising in my throat. I want to move, I want to go, I want to get away as if everything behind me can be left there in the cold and bitter silence. Where the only noise is blue eyes on my neck and the only thought is lust and the only sensation is _yes, I will protect you if you ask that from me. _

But I don't want that. I want the noise of shrieking and sensation of greed and thought of _this is what I am made for. _I want somewhere where the taste of stale blood overpowers the mind and the rusty scent of a blade cutting flesh is what I bathe myself in. Where laughter is menacing and rare and plenty and Gods I'm somehow sobbing as I run.

The next thing to greet me is the empty dirt road rising to my knees as I collapse on my hands and legs. Another sob wrenches its way to my lips between craving gasps, and the pain rises, until it's overpowering like a wall of fire on a branch.

That's how strong I am. I collapse at the thought of warmth and rise up to embrace the chills. I used to think rejoicing in sins was strength but now I see: it was nothing but weakness. Strength is standing up to it all: all the darkness, the maddening ache for blood, the death. Link would softly say that fate is something we make with every decision. Even now I still say that fate is something interwoven to our souls.

Just thinking of Link is enough to send me over the edge. I softly pray to the Goddesses that he isn't looking for me because I can't stand to see him now; I pray between sobs and small gasps and the distortion of my mind as I pull and twist my face to try and stop the tears that dribble down. I can't stand the pain rising up in my throat and I try to stop it, futilely, like a mouse before a lion. So it comes out as a silent scream of pain or maybe I'm just forcing out a lot of my breath. The gasps that follow are choked with my whimpers and sobs and my eyes squeeze tighter, trying to stop. Everything is so garbled that I must sound like a cackling hyena and the thought does nothing to help: if anything, I start crying harder.

I stay like that forever, trying hard to stop and failing with every bout of pain. It's overwhelming, the fight inside of me. I don't want to stay anymore but I don't want to hurt him, Link. I don't want to do anything to him but pull him close and carry him away over my shoulder and walk into the bloody sunset but I _can't._ There's too much risk in that, it would hurt him more than leaving, because there's a roaring beast inside of my chest that itches to come out and make Link bleed out over the bed before I burn it. Let the flames lick my skin and become one with the darkness of the night. I want to claw my face off as if it was a mask and shed my skin like a bird trapped inside a cage, like I could become something more and the thoughts do nothing to soothe me.

I dig my fingers into the dry ground and shake my head with a soft cry that doesn't sound like pain even though it resonates from the strength of such an emotion. My head hurts and I'm probably dehydrating myself from letting out so many tears but I can't do anything. The weeping has stopped and I just feel like an empty cavern, already filling slowly with more pain. The last whimpers I let out are heartbroken and I just stay like that, waiting for my mind to clear enough to decide what I do next, staring blankly at the pool of saliva and snot and tears below me.

When I get to my feet I almost fall back down, stumbling as my mind whizzes and drops like a roller-coaster. I slowly find my feet again and shakily start running again, ignoring the pain in every step. I don't know where I'm going; I'm just focused on getting away: away from getting too close and letting out some form of animal inside me that wants nothing but the sight of crimson dripping down tapestries and the knowledge that somewhere, someone is bleeding out over a field of lively green.

I don't stop to think to myself that I can talk to someone about this, to Link. I don't stop to explain myself, to recapture the idea in my mind. I just keep going, as if somewhere some impatient God or Goddess is writing my story for some sadistic crowd and the pen can't quite move quickly enough and the thoughts are racing beyond understanding. I just keep going and they just keep going and I do find comfort in the knowledge that somewhere someone understands the race that I just can't go fast enough and they can't either.

And then I hear the sound of hooves clacking against the ground. The beat is fast and impatient and desperate. A race equal to the fervency of my own and I don't stop to look behind me, I jump to my left where thankfully there's a field of tall and concealing wheat. I hadn't stopped to look and I may as well have just jumped into a tank of sharks but I _hadn't. _I peer out and breathe in raggedly as my eyes are shaded by dark gray hair and sweat drips down. All I can see is a chestnut brown creature fly past me and all I hear is the clack of black hooves and a shout of my name.

I feel the rising temptation to reveal myself to Link. To show him I'm fine, to feel his breath on my skin, to hear his voice and hold him close and maybe even kiss him. But I don't, I just tell myself that he's past me now and roll over and stare up at the sky that slowly goes from orange to a pink that bleeds into a shade of indigo so rich that it would strike greed and jealousy in the hearts of any who adore wealth.

And then the waves of golden wheat part and I find myself looking into a much more vibrant shade of blue. I can hear a voice speaking but it blends into the silent state of my mind. I just scrunch my face up a bit as I try to compare the indigo the cobalt and finally, I decide that I prefer neither. They're both stunning shades and slowly a thought rises up from the ocean of emptiness that is my mind: _shit._

It's only when a warm hand touches my cheek that my mind is aware that my eyes have been closed. I blink them awake and stare right back into a pair of eyes that are quick to glare at me. The more I focus the more I realize how very screwed I am and how dangerous just being near him is because all I want to do is kiss him and kill him and "Hello."

The eyes soften a bit. "What the hell is wrong with you?" His voice is so soft and flows smoothly, like water. But it's a strong voice, not weak or doubting. The accusation is fierce despite the tone and I know this can't end well.

"Somehow my skin pigment got messed up." I lazily wave one of my charcoal gray hands to prove my point. "…You shouldn't be here." I add after Link's eyes sharpen in disapproval. He's standing over me and he's far from my face but I can still smell him, his scent that's crisp and clean and something like the forest. I can almost taste him, a mix of herbs somewhere between rosemary and mint, sweet and thick. Yet my mind seems stubborn to linger from its state of dormancy, too slow to take advantage of what is before me.

"Damn right I shouldn't be." He snaps as I sit up, my whole body lost in the exhilaration of anarchy and the craving for speed. His voice softens again as he adds, "You can't just run from me. I don't give up quite as quickly."

_Don't give up as quickly as what, me? _"I wasn't running from you," I murmur, standing up. I can look him in the eyes when I say it because it is, in a certain point of view, true. I wasn't running from him, I would always only run for him. I was simply running from everything he embodied: courage, strength, wisdom, light, righteousness. But I don't look him in the eyes because I'm suddenly very self-conscious that I may still have blotches of barely decipherable pink on my cheeks, that my eyes may be rimmed with a dry red. I don't want to make it obvious that I'm suffering inside. So instead I look over his shoulder, watching the horizon.

He makes a noise that sounds like he doesn't believe me. Maybe it would have been more productive to look in his eyes after all. But I need to leave; I can't explain myself right now. His mere presence is invoking something in me other than warmth and lust and familiarity. Somehow I sought him out long ago amidst the crowds and now, as the beast inside tries to claim an appearance, I find myself regretting it. "So taking off not hours after I extend my help isn't running from me?"

"I can assure you, it's not help you're extending." Dammit. I shouldn't have said that. My mind screams to rewind and I grumble back to it that if I could, I would. Too late though, I am flawed, and such is an example. The face he makes is somewhere between frustrated and that of someone who just took a sharp blow to the face, a look of shock and pain. Pain that goes straight to me and I feel every ounce of what I just inflicted and I silently damn him for making me empathetic.

The urge to shield him from pain rises up. _I will if you ask I will if you ask. _But the only thing that would pain him is me and I don't know how else to protect him from myself; I curse myself again, for the millionth time, for having a monster inside of me that always seems to overpower anything that gets close. A monster that was really more of some army of demons and living sins, all this pride and gluttony and I don't know how to stop it, other than for Link's sake, I honestly don't _want_ to stop it. I bite my lip when silence comes over us again, too much silence between us as always.

Finally he does speak, and I have to avoid his eyes because they're seeking mine. "What do you consider it to be, then? I only offered to-"

"I know what you offered." I cut him off. His earlier words still echo in my mind, words of promise and aid, lost in my hollow mind. Offering to help because it's obvious I need it, that somehow it's blatant that there's something gnawing at me from the inside. And there is: there's this invisible _thing _inside of me that's clawing at my stomach. But as hard as he tries I won't let him get an answer, I won't let him get close; this murderous thing inside me is my defect to bear and mine alone; because if I let him get close, I'll kill him.

It's really all as simple as that.

I can already see it behind my eyes, something that whispers to just grab my sword and run it through his lean torso. To lick the blood up from the blade on the tip of my tongue as he falls to the ground and watch, laughing, as the shocking shades of blue fade to an empty shell of color.

It's all a bit confusing to me, really, how one part of me can so need Link and yet the other part so desperately wants to outright murder him. Our relationship is confusing enough. He always calls us 'lovers', though I honestly preferred 'fuck buddies'. I found it more fitting; since I can clearly say I never intended to weave myself to him. But now I had grown too close to just use such a loose term, though I had no idea what to entitle ourselves: something between ensnared in an uncontrollable romantic interest and a very, very active physical attraction.

His eyes follow me quietly as I walk out of the overgrown grain and back onto the road. I tip my head a bit at the foot prints left in the dirt, undoubtedly how he followed me. "Go home, Link." I say flatly as I start down the road, once more in my earlier direction.

I can feel him waking behind me but I don't stop to look at him. "Can we at least talk about this?"

I don't want to talk. I want to ensure his safety as soon as I can and that means getting away. I know deep down that I'll never really be able to stay away, but I keep telling myself that I need to try, I need to at least give each of us enough time that whatever bond we has weakens and the danger passes. I need to let go before I destroy him. So I just keep walking, eyes forward. "Not now. Just stay away for a bit." _I need time,_ I tell myself that if I say 'I need time' I'll be guaranteed some sort of sympathetic and saddened acceptance but the words don't leave my lips.

"Dark!" he suddenly yells and I freeze, turning slowly to look at him. Yelling like that was something he would never do, something too unjustified and rushed and infected for his patient and understanding personality. So when I see his eyes, I can only gaze at him in confusion.

His eyes aren't blue anymore.

They're an empty shade of black that I have never seen, not in any demon or shadow or any such damnable creation of the gods, and certainly not in him. I don't know what to say other than 'what the fuck' so I stay silent as he smiles. My heart beats in my ears again, a frenzy, a rush of blood, my gut dropping. What…

There's a rush of air that leaves my lungs as I gasp, unable to contain air as I look down slowly. Pain rushes through my body and my heart speeds, roaring, as I come to the realization that I've just been stabbed.

I look down and my body heaves in rejection at the dagger in my stomach. My hands slowly clutch the hilt and I cough dryly as I pull it out, blood welling up in my body and dribbling onto my lips. "Wha-" I feel the metal, _inside me_, rubbing against the sliced skin and cutting whatever rubbed against, jolting like electricity behind my eyes. I clutch at the wound, just barely able to look up into the black eyes that were still so _empty _and dark.

"You can't deny me." He whispers, and pushes me so that I fall on my back, too much in shock to do anything. His voice isn't his own, but what terrifies me, is that it's so alike the voice in my head.

Filtering through the pain and haze is the thought that maybe my demon originates from his. That maybe this entire time he's had to fight just as hard to keep me safe as I have him. I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a silent cry of pain as a finger runs over the wound, digging in. I open my blurred hazy eyes to see black ones looking at me happily, a wet blade running over my throat.

I know when I close my eyes that I won't live to open them again.

And they don't open.

_**Don't want to let you down  
But I am, hell bound  
**__**Though this is all for you  
**__**Don't want to hide the truth**_

_**No matter what we breed  
We still are made of greed  
This is my kingdom come  
This is my kingdom come**_

_**When you feel my heat  
Look inside my eyes  
It's where my demons hide  
It's where my demons hide  
:Demons; Imagine Dragons:**_


End file.
